deaf leading the blind
by hyacinthian
Summary: KEINOHRHASEN. Who is she to go against the ear-less bunny-rabbit-slash-seal thing's wishes? LudoAnna.


She keeps it by her bed.

Late at night, when she's working on administrative paperwork for the daycare center and Miriam's gone to bed, she catches its eye, its poor ear-less eye, and she smiles. It reminds her that someone thinks of her. Or rather, someone thought of her, once.

He's still an asshole. She knows that. She remembers everything he did to her, every little trick, and the way his sister would just toss her head, like _oh, that's just Ludo, he does that to all the girls. _She was the one who held a grudge, was the one who never forgot, even when he was out sleeping with this set of twins or that pretty girl.

Her life is winding down now; she's settled into frumpery long before it's become somewhat socially acceptable. And he's popped back into her life again, and she already _feels _more alive, body sparking like a wire. She still isn't over her last boyfriend, and she certainly doesn't know if she can forge ahead and say that she loves - _likes_, she means - Ludo, but he's making steps. She's not sure if it's just his probationary status or whether or not he actually finds that she's a good friend or someone who actually listens to him; it's too much to hope that there is something to be salvaged in the wreckage of their childhood relationship, so she doesn't hope. She looks at the stitched doll he made, the bunny-that-isn't-a-bunny, her _eine kleine Spiegel_, and it gives her comfort, though she's not sure what about.

His touch ignites her, this she realizes.

She's had too much to drink and he seems so, so sober, but his lips are red hot as they burn their way across her skin. He's done this before with far too many women, she remembers, but she can hardly think. He's taken the glasses off of her face and everything seems to whirl and blur together, part-alcohol, part short-sightedness (and damn if that isn't a metaphor), her hands run through his short hair and it is almost enough, the way he presses his hands against her hips, it is almost enough, the way his tongue dips into her just _that _way, it is almost enough as she shakes against him.

And then he is leading her to his room, his bedroom, and there is no safety net here, there are no sewn on eyes of her _eine kleine Spiegel _to hint that perhaps this is not the greatest of ideas. She is lost, surrounded by him, except it's no longer Coca-Cola or magnets that he hurls in her vicinity, it is just him, his very self, and just like all the other times, she knows she'll fall victim to it.

But when he buries himself in her, mouth hot against the crook of her neck, he asks her if she's okay, and she wonders if he's ever asked this to anyone, and she murmurs yes, yes, she wants this, and he can't stop now because how will she ever get herself out of this mess if he doesn't lead her halfway into the pit first?

There are no patchwork eyes to tell her this is a bad idea, there is no seal, no token of whatever their relationship might be.

There is just him.

It's misleading, that.

-

A year later, they are in the same position and he is tracing patterns on her back where he knows she's ticklish, and she twitches every so often because she doesn't want him to have the satisfaction of seeing her break.

He kisses her bare shoulder. "Everything okay?"

She gives a slight nod, kisses his knuckles.

"I love you," he whispers, in that reverent way of his. And part of her still wonders if it's a trick, if indeed the soda can will actually just burst into foam straight up, past her glasses, past her defenses, to leave her sticky and sweet and a target for laughter. But he says it, just those words, in just that way, and she has difficulty not trusting him.

She sighs against him.

"I love you too."

The ear-less bunny-rabbit-slash-seal thing sits on the corner of her dresser in the corner of their room (theirs, possessive pronoun; hard to believe she is part of a 'they') and it is tacit in its approval.

And who is she to go against the ear-less bunny-rabbit-slash-seal thing's wishes?


End file.
